


one night only

by riots



Category: Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, F/M, Post-Mass Effect 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-26 17:52:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12064038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/riots/pseuds/riots
Summary: "I’m disappointed, Mr. Vega. All that conditioning and you still get winded like this? Maybe I should be worried about what you spend all your time doing down in the hold."





	one night only

Boots pounding on metal flooring, they give chase.

For a heartbeat, Shepard thinks they’ve lost the little shit, but then she spots a flash of silver jacket and she curses quietly, darting down the narrow hall after him.

Behind her, James sucks in a laboured breath. “I hate Omega,” he says with feeling. Despite everything, Shepard grins. “All these skinny little halls, all twisty turny. I’m gonna break something.” There’s a slam up in front of them as a door bangs open and Shepard has to haul a hard right, nearly skidding right into the wall as she rounds the corner. James isn’t so lucky. She hears the squeak of his boot heel dragging across the floor and then the thump as his body hits the wall. “Shit!”

“I’m disappointed, Mr. Vega. All that conditioning and you still get winded like this?” She twists her head back to look at him, and from the dark set of his eyes and the flush on his cheeks, she’s got a pretty good idea of how rude his thoughts are. Her grin gets wider. “Maybe I should be worried about what you spend all your time doing down in the hold.”

“Peak...physical...condition…” James grunts at her as they race through the doorway after their prey. Shepard would be genuinely concerned, but James is keeping up with her just fine, even if he’s huffing and puffing. It’s probably a little for effect at this point. Or it’s the beer. One or the other. “Commander.”

“I’m finding that a little hard to believe,” she tells James. Ahead of them, she can see the flash of heels as the little salarian takes the stairs, two at a time. He’s getting away. She narrows her eyes and throws herself up after him. She’ll be damned if she lets that happen. “Pick it up, Vega, let’s move!” James mutters something under his breath but she can hear the thud of his boots speed up anyway. That’s more like it.

The salarian is leading them back towards the centre of Omega, towards Afterlife and the crowds, probably trying to lose them in the people. Shepard dodges through a group of vorcha, dashing off a sorry as one hisses at her in irritation. The kid may have the advantage of familiar ground, but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t have a few tricks up her sleeve, too.

This was just supposed to be a relaxing night out. They spend so much time doing the whole ‘saving the galaxy’ thing, it was about time they got a chance to blow off some steam. Omega managed to dodge the most of the fallout of the pulse from the Crucible, and they’ve had a few years to rebuild. Sometimes, Shepard feels like the whole Cerberus occupation was a bit of a fever dream, and then she turns a corner to find a whole wall ripped off a room and it sets it firmly back in reality.

Most places she’s been look a little like that, now. The first time she’d landed on the Citadel after the end of the war had been…unsettling. Now, when they dock, she mostly sends out the crew to pick up supplies. She’s not sure she ever really wants to be back there again.

But Omega, Omega feels good. Maybe it’s because it’s always felt a little bit like a warzone, in the way that those illegal Terminus system colonies always do. Everyone’s a little bit awful here. She fits right in. Doesn’t even feel guilty when she and James hole up in a booth in Afterlife and plan to get sloppy drunk for the sheer joy of it. She’s a war hero, now. She earned a few drinks.

But then some little shit had gotten the bright idea to steal himself a souvenir from Commander Shepard’s table. It’s silly, and sentimental, but she’d been carrying around her first set of dog tags for a while now. They were so twisted up at this point they were barely even recognizable, but maybe the kid had just gone for the first shiny thing he’d seen and then he’d been off like a shot. “Did he just?” Shepard had gaped down at the table. She’d only set them down for a second.

“He did,” James had said grimly, and then they were off after him, before he lost them in the maze of tunnels beneath Afterlife. She’d been vaguely aware of the smash of a bottle as it tipped off the table’s edge, but she’d kept going. A broken bottle was hardly the worst that club had seen before.

It’s been a while since she’d gotten to do something like this. Nowadays, the Alliance mostly just wanted to parade her around the galaxy in the Normandy, as patched up and piecemeal as she was these days. It was all diplomacy, shaking hands and signing papers. It’s been a long time since she’s even gotten to do anything this immediate, this _fun_. 

She whoops and barrels through a trio of half-drunk asari commandos, laughing even as she trips over their feet and they shout after her. James catches her before she lands on her face, scooping her up and righting her so they can continue the chase. “The lady, the legend,” he says dryly. “One night only.” 

He’s less angry now, after the war. She’s not sure anyone could come out of something like that unchanged, but she’s not complaining. Working his way through N7 training seems to have helped James process some of that bitter energy, whittled it down to a focus, a purpose, and when he’d asked for a berth on the Normandy again, she’d only hesitated for his sake. Not much excitement left on an old bird like her, after all. 

Still, he’d insisted, and she’d agreed, easily. Seemed like everyone had gone their separate ways, helping to rebuild their worlds after the war, and Shepard had been left to rebuild herself. It was nice to have a piece of her crew back with her. She still had Joker, of course - she’s fairly certain he’d have to be pried from the Normandy’s helm upon death - and Chakwas had been the one to monitor her slow recovery, but having James around, it was good.

Things were different, though. Once upon a time, James would’ve been content to follow orders, happy to be a grunt, but since Sanctuary, since London and the Crucible, since reconstruction, he’s come into his own. On her bad days, when her legs don’t want to work again and her good hand aches so bad she can’t unclench it, he steps up to shoulder the weight for her, and that, she doesn’t mind.

She likes being equals.

They’re circling back to the club now, and the salarian looks back at them, panicked, as he gets caught up in the snaggle of people clamouring for entry to Afterlife. Advantage: Shepard. “We’ve got him now,” she says, triumphant. 

The line arcs down the wide walkway, busy enough that it has to be payweek, but it’ll only hold the little salarian up for a moment or two. He’s already pushing towards the stairs back down into the bowels of the station and they have to take the chance while they have it. Shepard scans the room and spots it. Got it. She shoots a look back at James and he’s already grinning at her. “Nice,” he says.

“Loser buys the next round,” she calls to him, and then she sprints at the crowd. If she wasn’t a little drunk, she’d _never_ use a volus as a springboard to vault over the line, but as it is, well. She laughs for the sheer joy of it even as the volus sputters out a complaint and she lands on her feet, stumbling only a little. She’s only a few more metres away from the salarian now, she’s so _close_ -

James barrels into the salarian, sending the two of them tumbling over and over until James’ broad back slams into the guardrail with one hell of a bang. He’s dazed when she scrambles over and flips him over to check on him, but not dizzy enough to miss catching the salarian’s ankle with one big hand and bring him down again. “C’mon, kid,” he says, blinking off the impact and sitting up. “Cough them up.”

The salarian looks nervously between the two of them, James’ face set into his ‘big scary bulldog’ marine expression and Shepard herself, looming over them with her hands planted on her hips. “Sorry,” he squeaks, handing the tags over so fast he almost throws them in her face. “I didn’t know -”

James drops the kid and pushes himself up onto his feet. “Uh huh,” he says, scooping up the tags.

“Get out of here.” Shepard sighs, waving a hand, and the salarian is off like a shot once again. She’s kinda glad she doesn’t have to chase him again. She’s pushed herself hard enough as is, and she’s out of breath, her diaphragm doing that aching wheezy thing that lets her know she’s in for a lecture from Chakwas tomorrow.

When she turns back to James, he’s holding out either end of the chain. “Y’know, Lola, if you wore em, bet you wouldn’t lose em,” he tells her. 

She considers it for a bit, how it will feel, the weight of her crumpled up old dogtags and her old life, and then she steps forward into the circle of his arms and lets him fasten it up for her. She’s close enough to feel the warmth of his body, like this. She thinks about that for a moment, too. “That’s enough lip from you,” she says. 

His task done, he rests his hands on her shoulders. “Anyone ever tell you you’re _real_ bossy?” They slide away again, and Shepard lets him step away, though not without reluctance. 

“A few people,” she replies. They wind their way back up the stairs to the entrance to the club, and she waves to the bouncer as she slings an arm around James’ shoulders. “I guess I owe you a drink now, don’t I?”

He tips his head to smile at her. “Just the one?” he asks, and she grins at him, her fingers finding the double weight of tags over her heart.


End file.
